Performance Breakthrough Process

Helping You Achieve Business and Technology Breakthroughs To Positively Impact your Bottom Line.

In today's rapidly changing global economy, companies that rely on the same internal business systems and processes they've had in place for years will find competitive forces slashing and possibly even destroying their bottom line.

In fact, flaws, gaps, operational errors, inefficiencies and redundancies in your daily business practices can be costing your company thousands and possibly even hundreds of thousands of dollars, and you may not even be aware of it.

"If we can measure $200,000 of hard cost recovery, there is probably a million dollar opportunity in real savings if you make a few strategic adjustments," says Dan O'Toole, President of Phoenix Systems.

"That's why we have created The Performance Breakthrough Process- to help organizations achieve greater success by providing business and technology breakthroughs to positively impact your bottom line."

For over twenty-five years, Phoenix Systems has helped hundreds of companies assess and improve the performance of their administrative, distribution, manufacturing/assembly and financial processes. As a long time partner with award-winning, best of breed software vendors, Phoenix Systems provides an all in one business and software solution to manage improvements and spur performance.

"We are in the business of being both sayers and doers. We can find out what is going wrong in your business operations and we can provide the software solutions to fix it. Most importantly, we are focused on your bottom line. Our customers measure our performance by how we save them money. By doing so, we help organizations increase profits and grow their business," O'Toole says.

Phoenix Systems target markets are owner-managed entrepreneurial companies with $10 - $100 million in annual revenues and growing, as well as businesses below $10 million in annual revenues who are high growth and fast moving. These companies are generally in the manufacturing or distribution sector and have a global focus. They often have multi-locations and are working with multiple cultures and currencies.

"These are companies that have already achieved considerable success but may feel uncertain about the future of their business. They want to grow their bottom line but are getting signals that something is going wrong somewhere in their operation. They may not know what or where the problem is, or how to find and fix it, and that can keep them awake at night," says O'Toole.

WHAT IS KEEPING BUSINESSES AWAKE AT NIGHT?

THEIR BOTTOM LINE IS SHRINKING. A lot of businesses that are profitable and used to doing things in a certain way may suddenly find themselves selling a product for less than it costs to make. They are getting pressure from their customers to reduce prices. Their vendors are increasing their prices. Their fixed overhead costs have grown disproportionately with their business growth and they are being forced to do more with less. This may be the case for organizations that are asking themselves why they can't compete with their rivals selling a similar product at a lower price.

THEIR BUSINESS IS GROWING BUT NOT THE BOTTOM LINE. In fact, their bottom line might even be shrinking. Imagine a $40 million company driving a ten percent bottom line, that's a four million dollar profit. Imagine that same business growing to a $50 million company but suddenly finding it is now losing a million dollars a year.

THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO ACCOMMODATE GROWTH. This is the company that is growing quickly and wants to accommodate that growth without increasing its staff. The company may be already working at a hundred and ten percent capacity. Suddenly, they are mandated to grow the business by fifty percent without changing their fixed overhead such as moving or hiring more people.

THEY ARE BLAMING THEIR PROBLEMS ON THE CANDIAN DOLLAR. For many companies, this is a single most critical factor. They have built their business strategy on a weak Canadian dollar, and now find the rise in the Canadian currency is cutting into their profits and making them less competitive. This is a flawed strategy. Like a hurricane, you have no control if you have not developed a business infrastructure to weather the storm.

THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO MANAGE THEIR BOTTOM LINE. Many firms that are more structured and growing want to do more than keep their bottom line from shrinking, they want to grow it but don't know how to do so without hiring more people and adding cost.

"It's normal that most companies in the $10 - $100 million range have operational processes and inefficiencies that are likely eating into their profitability. They need to develop business processes that allow them to do more with less and grow their bottom line, "says O'Toole.

One such business manufacturer produces over the counter consumer products. It was planning significant growth but couldn't perform profitably given their current business infrastructure.

"They knew it wasn't humanly possible to handle the growth. Throwing people at the problem wasn't the answer because the overhead expenses of doing so would exceed revenues," says O'Toole. "However after further investigation, we discovered that the company had a lot of redundancies. For instance, ten to twelve people were handling the same information over and over again to complete a sale. As a result, it was costing on average $214.00 to create a purchase order - roughly two and half times the industry average; and $64 to create a sales order and the industry average was between $35-$50. Multiply these transactions by the thousands and overall the costs are enormous."

"Your business can be growing and you can still go broke," says O'Toole. "Something as simple as knowing whether you are making money can be difficult to evaluate without a business performance review. In this particular case, with a more efficient business process and a software solution to fit their needs, we are able to reduce the costs of purchasing and sales order generation by over a half a million dollars a year."

THE STANDING STILL TRAP
"Most businesses understand that they have some errors and inefficiencies that are costing them money but continue to do the same things they have always done. With the rate of change these days, the way you do business today better not be the way you did business five years ago, and it certainly better not be the way you do business five years from now," says O'Toole.

"What you do today may be flawed tomorrow and, in fact, just by standing still, you risk stepping back.

"That's why it is important to give your business infrastructure a regular check-up and to make adjustments along the way in order to mitigate business risk in the future."